His steps are not upon thy paths-thy fields Are not a spoil for him,-thou dost arise And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies His petty home in some near port or bay And dashest him again to earth :--there let him lay. The armaments which thunderstrike the walls, Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake, And monarchs tremble in their capitals, The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make Their clay creator the vain title take They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar At Keswick, and through still continued fusion Of one another's minds, ut last have grown To deem as a most logical conclusion, That poesy has wreaths for you alone; There is a narrowness in such a notion, Which makes me wish you'd change your lakes for ocean. I would not imitate the petty thought, Nor coin my self-love to so base a vice, For all the glory your conversion brought, Since gold alone should not have been its price, You have your salary; was 't for that you wrought? And Wordsworth has his place in the Excise. You're shabby fellows-true-but poets still, And duly seated on the immortal hill. ago (Long ere I dreamt of dating from the Brenta) I was most ready to return a blow, And would not brook at all this sort of thing In my hot youth-when George the Third was King. But now at thirty years my hair is gray(I wonder what it will be like at forty? I thought of a peruke the other day--) My heart is not much greener; and, in short, I Have squander'd my whole summer while 't was May, And feel no more the spirit to retort; I Have spent my life, both interest and principal, And deem not, what I deem'd, my soul invincible. No more-no more--Oh! never more on me The freshness of the heart can fall like dew, Which out of all the lovely things we see Extracts emotions beautiful and new, |